An issue that some schools can’t talk about because it’s too real, involves discussing sex with teens, a conversation that parent(s) prefer to reserve for themselves…but shouldn’t schools be having these conversations, even if it means stepping between the right of a parent and his/her child?

• Her teen committed suicide over ‘sexting’ – Parenting & Family

  • Her teen committed suicide over ‘sexting’

    Cynthia Logan’s daughter was taunted about photo she sent to boyfriend

  • The image was blurred and the voice distorted, but the words spoken by a young Ohio woman are haunting. She had sent nude pictures of herself to a boyfriend. When they broke up, he sent them to other high school girls. The girls were harassing her, calling her a slut and a whore. She was miserable and depressed, afraid even to go to school.

  • The interview was in May 2008. Two months later, Jessica Logan hanged herself in her bedroom. She was 18.

  • It is a growing problem that has resulted in child pornography charges being filed against some teens across the nation. But for Cynthia Logan, “sexting” is about more than possibly criminal activity: It’s about life and death.

  • Last fall, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy surveyed teens and young adults about sexting — sending sexually charged material via cell phone text messages — or posting such materials online. The results revealed that 39 percent of teens are sending or posting sexually suggestive messages, and 48 percent reported receiving such messages.

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  • When Cynthia Logan decided to go public with her story, she told Lauer that a school official told a local television station that he had given Jesse the option of prosecuting her tormentors. “That was not so. It’s absolutely not true,” she told Lauer. “And if he did, why didn’t I get a notice in the mail that he gave her that option?”

    TODAY Cynthia Logan is still contending with her grief over her daughter Jesse’s suicide.

    After her daughter’s death, Logan quit her job and was hospitalized for a time with what she described as a mental breakdown.

  • Jesse had been talking about going to the University of Cincinnati to study graphic design. Her mother thought she was over the worst of the bullying. Then one of Jesse’s acquaintances committed suicide. Jesse went to the funeral. When she came home, she hanged herself.

    “I just had a scan of the room, her closet doors were open,” Logan told NBC News. “And I walked over into her room and saw her hanging. The cell phone was in the middle of the floor.”

  • If somebody’s under the age of 18, it’s child pornography, and even the girl that posted the pictures can be charged. They could be registered sex offenders at the end of all of this. Even at the age of 18, because it was sent to somebody under age, it’s disseminating pornography to a minor. There are criminal charges that could be made here.”

  • “Forty-four percent of the boys say that they’ve seen sexual images of girls in their school, and about 15 percent of them are disseminating those images when they break up with the girls.”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.